


Caution Tape

by orangememesicle



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Anxiety Disorder, Anxious!Connor, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post 2x09, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Hatred, connor walsh is a sad man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-22
Updated: 2015-11-22
Packaged: 2018-05-02 18:47:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5259686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangememesicle/pseuds/orangememesicle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Panic attacks have always been a part of his life.<br/>Connor doesn’t remember a time in his life when they didn’t hover over him. It’s always been behind him, yellow caution tape surrounding the crime scene of his mind, the panicked bubbling of feelings in his throat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Caution Tape

**Author's Note:**

> I've been dealing with writer's block for the past few days, so I wrote an angsty little HTGAWM fic for y'all because I have so many feelings about Connor Walsh. I've always headcanoned him as having an anxiety disorder and I can't find much Anxious!Connor. Which is sad, because his anxiety is really what drew me to him as a character in the first place.

Panic attacks have always been a part of his life. 

Connor doesn’t remember a time in his life when they didn’t hover over him. It’s always been behind him, yellow caution tape surrounding the crime scene of his mind, the panicked bubbling of feelings in his throat. 

He’s tried many things. Alcohol, sex, marijuana. Even ecstasy at one point. Anything that can flood his body with endorphins. It doesn’t work in the long run, but he’ll take what he can get.

Sometimes he throws up during them, when he can’t get enough air, when his chest feels like someone’s pressing on it. Other times, he just curls up, hugging a pillow or book or something to his stomach, tears building up at the corners of his eyes. It isn’t even always related to important things. Sometimes it’s just going home to his family, or it just hits him in the middle of class with no apparent reason. 

He hates them more than anything else. He hates feeling like a broken piece of china for other people to sweep up and glue back together again. 

Connor Walsh has panic attacks. 

And the inevitability of the next one weighs on his chest. 

**********

Sinclair is dead and Connor can’t breathe. He rests his forehead on his knees, hearing Michaela shouting his name.

“Connor! Please, don’t leave without me!” Michaela needs him and he can’t help her. He can’t help her and his mouth tastes like acid and his whole body is trembling against the pillars of the Hapstall mansion. White pillars, like how heaven is always described. But this heaven is soaked in Annalise’s blood and he can’t.

He can’t do this anymore.

He’s a terrible person. 

He should have told Oliver this immediately, while they were lying in post-coital bliss wrapped around each other. 

He destroys and manipulates and breaks people and that is all he is good at.

Michaela finds him, sobbing and hyperventilating, his hair pasted black onto his pale forehead like a child’s poorly glued collage. 

“Connor?”

"I can't - "

“I know,” Michaela says, her voice wavering. “I know,”

They’re holding each other and she’s sobbing into his chest. She’s so much smaller than she looks. As he hugs her, her head fits perfectly in the curve of his neck. He can feel his Adam’s apple bobbing when he swallows. Michaela trembles as he presses his face to her shoulders. His tears stain her sweater. Her shampoo smells like green apples.

He’s never allowed himself to get this close to Michaela. He doesn’t want to destroy her like he does everyone else. In the brief period of time they’ve been friends, they’ve never once hugged each other, or made physical contact with her outside of their vitriolic banter.

“It’s okay. We’re all going to be okay.” Her voice is soothing like honey, the way it was on that night almost a year ago. “Just calm down long enough for me to drive you to Oliver’s.” 

His breathing starts to slow down as he and Michaela hold each other.

“You know,” Connor says, showing his teeth, eyes sparkling with false mirth, “if you’d told me a year ago that you’re the one I can trust in this clusterfuck, I would’ve laughed in your face.”

“Shut up,” Michaela says without any real malice. “After this is all over, I’m going to take you home, and you’re going to be grateful.”

Connor wants to say that he can go home on his own. That he’ll be fine, really. That she doesn’t need to babysit him. But she’s seen him punish himself. She’s heard his voice slurred with vodka over the phone. She’s heard his tinny falsetto as he sang Christmas carols with a corpse as an audience. It would be a lie to say that she has nothing to worry about, so he keeps quiet.

Maybe neither of them will ever be okay. 

But they can pretend for now. 

 

**********

 

Connor turns the keys, and in the click of the lock he hears Sinclair’s bones breaking as she hits the pavement. 

Sort of like how Pax’s bones broke, Connor thinks idly, his lips numb. Pax’s body had hit the ground and blood had blossomed from his skull. A small girl had screamed and dropped a chocolate mint ice cream cone into the growing pool of blood. The ambulance hadn’t even bothered to turn on the sirens, because it was clear that Pax was gone already.

Staggering inside, he grabs a wall for support. His chest hurts, like someone’s flaying his heart with a knife. He hates all of them, Annalise most of all for dragging him into this whole mess. He knows it’s irrational. He doesn’t give a fuck that it’s irrational. 

“Con?”

Connor can hear Oliver’s voice, far away, still steeped in sleep. 

“Connor, are you okay?”

Connor can’t get words past his mouth. 

He can still feel Sinclair’s blood on his hands, slick and cool. The clammy, all too familiar clammy corpse skin. Annalise’s pleading dark eyes, the gun cold in his hands. And Michaela’s desperation. That had been the worst part.

He can’t talk. He can’t drag in enough air to huff out even a single syllable. 

Connor retches into the sink, and he’s vaguely aware of Oliver rubbing his shoulders, tracing his name into his back. “It’s going to be okay. Hey, just focus on my voice.”

Connor nods. Blood buzzes in his fingers and toes.

“Connor, I mean it. I’m not going to leave you.” Oliver’s voice is low and reassuring. “Come with me. You’re shaking.”

Connor watches as Oliver grabs his hand. He dazedly feels his legs moving towards the couch. Oliver hasn’t even turned the light on, and all Connor can think about is how the lies are hidden beneath everything in this room, inside the fridge, in the woodwork of their dining room table, in the soft blankets and under the peeling purple wallpaper.

“Ollie, I’m so sorry.” 

“What’re you sorry for?”

He can’t even answer.

Connor doesn’t smell like smoke this time. 

Ollie is someone he doesn’t deserve. Ollie is takeout Chinese and crooked bowties and love.

Love.

Connor doesn’t know if he’s capable of it anymore.

Connor leans back on the couch, closing his eyes. He holds a decorative pillow from their apartment to his stomach, fingers tracing over the rough lace and smooth satin. 

“This is like last time, isn’t it?”

Connor doesn’t dare open his eyes. He mouths, “Yes.”

“It’s not drugs, is it?”

Connor shakes his head, chest filled with pain. “I – ”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me about it right now.” Oliver stands up. Connor can hear the chink of ice and the rush of tap water, then footsteps walking over to him. “Here.”

Oliver pushes a cool glass of water into his hands. Connor takes a sip, but his stomach riots and roils. Remarkably, he keeps it down. His breathing begins to slow. And even though he shakes, even though he feels like a nuclear reactor that can destroy Oliver in seconds, he’s slightly less unstable. Still toxic, still radioactive, but nowhere near the intensity he felt earlier. 

Oliver has handled his panic attacks before. This one may have been a bit over his head, but he knows to stay close when Connor has one. Physical contact and soft touches will bring his boyfriend back to earth. He can tether Connor to reality for a small period of time like he would tie down a helium balloon trying to float to the sky. He can coax Connor into letting go of his textbook. Oliver can hold Connor as he shakes and cries and mumbles after nightmares. 

But he can’t make Connor a good person.


End file.
